"Did you get him?"
Yuna asked this as she and Bronya stared into the smoking remains of half the apartment. They had waited silently for a few seconds, expecting some movement from the stranger. The two didn't divert their eyes from the scene as the smoke slowly cleared. There, Yuna's question was answered.
"You two messed up, big time," the man sneered, a purple bubble surrounding and protecting him and the ground he stood on. His hood slipped off during the attack, revealing dark indigo hair and blue eyes on a narrow face.
"Project Bunny, prep second salvo of kinetic energy rounds."
The man's smirk grew as he raised his hand to his opponent. "A tank division couldn't stop me, and I'm running behind schedule." By clenching his hand into a fist, Project Bunny shattered like glass, large chunks falling with thuds against the wooden floor. The man's next move was a flick, which sent Bronya flying into the wall behind her.
"Bronya-san!" Yuna yelled, watching the younger girl slump to the ground, unconscious. Yuna looked back and outstretched her arms, sending a wave of vines at the man. This proved for naught, as a clench of the man's hand summoned a black orb before himself to suck up the vines. The man's smirk from before disappeared, changing into a frown of pure disgust.
"I won't kill Zaychik. Her mother begged me to spare her life. You, on the other hand," - The man raised his hand again, now aimed at Yuna - "get to see the inside of a black hole." He channeled his powers to end the girl but paused when he heard the patter of feet behind him.
The man turned his head and watched as a fist slammed against a barrier, generating blue, hexagonal shockwaves across the wall around him. "Oh? And here I thought Schicksal Valkyries were crap." He turned to face his new opponent, who jumped back for some distance; it was Fu Hua, dressed only in an oversized white button-up shirt and baby blue flip-flops.
"I had assumed Kiana and Bronya were fighting once more," Hua stated as she slipped into her battle stance. "I didn't expect a rat to slip in." The man smirked and opened his mouth to taunt the opponent but closed his mouth as a shocked expression crossed his face.
A blade sprouted out of the man's chest, the blood soaking the dark shirt. The man closely lost consciousness and slumped forward, revealing the murderer behind the man.
"That's... rather final for you, Phillip," Hua said, scowling at the body as Phillip pulled his blade from the body and allowed it to fall ungracefully to the floor but relaxing out of her stance. "We needed him to understand why he came here."
"First: not Phillip," the clone explained as he wiped the blood off his blade with the back of the body's coat. "Secondly, I don't care about why he's here. I care that he got here in the first place."
"Something he could have -" Hua shut her mouth and slipped back into her battle stance when the clone was jettisoned from his position into the kitchen, dispersing into smoke after destroying the cabinets. She eyed the body as it slowly climbed back to its feet, the gash in his chest closing with light steam.
"Now, that was rude, don't ya think?" The man smirked back towards Hua. "Now, why don't we continue from where we left off?"
Meanwhile, back with Theresa and Phillip,
"Ah, shit."
Phillip flinched hard when the memories of his clones were sent to him when Bronya's canon blast dispersed them. He now knew the current situation back at the apartment and needed to go there. Before alerting Theresa of his retreat, Phillip glanced into the arena to see Kiana's current progress.
From Theresa's statement, Kiana had managed to get farther than the principal predicted, getting through seven enemies total, while Theresa herself only ever managed four her first time through. However, Kiana seemed to slow down, kneeling to take a breath. A part of Phillip wanted to enter the arena to boost Kiana, but he was wary of entering while the stadium was active. His entering could change this entire journey from a training session to an extinction event.
So, he lightly tapped on Theresa's shoulder, pulling her from her musings on Kiana's capabilities. "Hey, something bad happened back at the apartment. I'm going to head back."
"What happened back there that badly that it needs your attention?" Theresa asked with a raised brow. "It can't be as bad as Kiana's cooking."
"How about an invader that got through the defenses, knocked out Mei, and is currently fighting Bronya and Yuri?"
"Can't be. St. Freya's defenses are second only to Schicksal's HQ. Now, come on, we get to see the first 'Final Boss'."
Phillip shot another glance into the stadium; the scene there didn't surprise him. The person that stood before Kiana was the Herrscher personality of Mei, flying above her opponent with three electric wings of various sizes. However, someone else called out before the two could start their fight.
"This is the final fight, Kiana. You need a better enemy than that. Let me fight you instead."
Both Phillip and Theresa shared a look, knowing the voice's source. They watched as the Herrscher disappeared into an electric fuzz and was replaced by Siegfried Kaslana, both pistols held out towards his daughter. Meanwhile, red messages flared around them as one question entered the onlooker's brains.
'Why is he Kiana's most feared enemy?'
6:45 pm, Himeko's apartment,
The last wall holding the apartment exploded, revealing the occupants to the brisk night air and the silver full moon. Hua, now covered in various scratches and bruises, crossed her arms to prevent her eyes from flying debris and checked beside her to see the conditions of the other girls. Luckily, Yuna erected a barrier of vines to protect Mei, Bronya, and herself. Seeing them safe, Hua returned her attention to her coming foe.
"Admirable, little valk," The man said, giving Hua a condescending clap for the performance as he floated in the place of the fallen wall. "I really didn't expect you to survive that."
Hua ignored the statement to focus on her revelations. "You can bend the forces of gravity on a whim."
"That's right," the man confessed, bringing a hand to his forehead to pose to Hua. "I have mastery over the nature of gravity itself. I can manipulate the weight of anything in my sight. I can shred my foes with a simple snap of my fingers." To prove this point, he did the action, digging an aperture into the apartment floor to the right of Hua and into the wall of vines.
When Hua heard the vines split with a hard snap, she looked back to see how Yuna was doing. Peering through the wide tear, she found that no one was there, the window wide open to show the escape route made.
The man stopped smirking at this revelation and glared darkly at Hua. "You wasted my time, and the third ran away. Do you understand what I'm going to do to you?"
Hua didn't respond and prepared herself to leap at the man. When the man snapped to send another shockwave at Hua, she unleashed the jump and sent a flurry of punches down on him. The barrier from before intercepted all of them.
"Did you think you could beat me with speed alone," the man asked with a scoff. "Get real. Your weak attacks with never penetrate my barrier." As one last first slammed against the barrier, the visage of Hua shattered like glass before dispersing in white sand. The man was left floating next to an empty apartment, completely alone.
The man's eye twitched violently at the revelation that he'd been duped. "That- that little Valkyrie coward! How dare she run in the middle of a fight after letting my prize run away?!" He flew over to the opposite side and looked around, finding no trace of the girls. "Damn it, I'm not returning to a test tube for this." He floated down to the ground and tried to move forward to start searching the campus. He stopped short of two steps when the razor-sharp blade of a scythe appeared before him, hovering just before his neck.
"Oh my, what do we have here?" The man adjusted himself to look behind himself without cutting his neck open. He found the glowing red, malice-filled eyes of one Rita Rossweisse, wearing her usual maid outfit.
"Seems like I found a rodent to clear out."
Meanwhile, on the northern end of the apartments,
"What are you doing here?! I thought you were holding him back!"
Hua sighed heavily as she leaned against the wall on the far side of the apartment complex, a few miles away from Himeko's. Lucky for her, Yuna also happened to be there, with both Mei's and Bronya's unconscious bodies. So, catching up to her was no longer a concern, as escaping was the highest priority.
"I was only attempting to stall him," Hua admitted as she slid down the wall to sit on the ground. "Once I noticed you had left, I cast an illusion on him and slipped away, as I currently lack any armaments to contend with him."
"Will the illusion hold him off for long?"
"I have no doubts that he'll escape quickly, which means we need to be just as fast in our escape." Hua picked herself up from the ground and walked over to Mei in an attempt to pick her up. However, as she reached down, Hua stopped when she noticed a tremor from Mei and stood back as the heiress climbed to her feet.
"Senpai, you're awake!" Yuna rushed forward to check on Mei but stopped when a wave of energy hit her. Knowing that the third Herrscher was now before her, Yuna scampered back behind Hua, who got ready for another fight.
The Herrscher didn't heed this and looked over to the fallen Bronya. She scowled at the unconscious body, shifted her gaze to the corner of the building, and walked past the two.
"Wait!" The Herrscher paused at Hua's sudden outburst and shot a hate-filled eye at her. "Whether you fight that man or not, you only have five minutes until the bomb goes off."
"Mei" scoffed at this. "That will be more than enough." With this, she continued with her walk toward the ongoing fight, taking seconds of what the other two did in minutes.
When she got close, Rita's attack was stopped by the man's palm, containing an orb of black energy. A blue diamond had appeared in the middle of the man's head, surrounded by two other markings that crossed over his eyes. As the two struggled to overpower the other, Rita noticed the coming Raiden.
"Miss Raiden, I suggest you vacate the area," Rita suggested calmly, despite her clear struggle against the man. "I'll take care of the rat, but I can't guarantee the environment will survive."
The man didn't react to the "rat" comment and instead looked behind himself to find his target. "Well, look who it is. Good to see the prey come right to the predator."
"Mei" raised a brow at this. "Scumbags don't deserve to talk to a queen." She then looked over at Rita with an unconcerned gaze. "You may stay and boil with this piece of scum, but I'd like to return the favor of those who protect my coward of a host."
The man gave a deep growl, glaring down at the third Herrscher. "You dare talk to me like that, brat?! Do you know who I am?!"
The third waved her hand to her side, forming the same electric wings she had back in Nagazora. "You are scum, so just sit still and enjoy the feeling of your blood boiling in your veins." Black clouds quickly formed to cover the full moon of night, blackening the campus until violet lightning struck the lake. A purple sigil appeared in the middle, right above the apartments, and the lightning pulled together.
Soon, red eyes peered down at the combatants, and then a violet Kirin rained down upon them.
6:46 pm, with Phillip and Theresa,
"Can you isolate the effects of the arena to only Kiana?"
As soon as Siegfried appeared in the arena, Theresa had been busy trying to shut down the system, only to be met with several error messages. After a while, Theresa calmed down and settled to watch the fight in progress, which kept itself to a fist brawl. On Phillip's end, however, he had tried to convince her to shut it down or reschedule the training for later as he grew more and more impatient. He didn't want to use the Flying Hiraishin, as he had no idea what would happen to the place if he did, but the temptation was slowly growing harder to ignore.
"I'm telling you there's no chance for someone to get into St. Freya without my say-so," Theresa said adamantly, causing Phillip to breathe angrily out of his nose. "Look, if anything happened there, I would've been notified already."
"ALERT! MEI RAIDEN'S FAIL-SAFE BOMB HAS BEEN PRIMED!"
The sudden alert blurted out from the computer startled Theresa, but Phillip didn't wait to hear the rest of the message. He booked it down the stairs and kicked the steel door that stood in his way to the other side of the arena. As he reached the entrance, Phillip stopped in time to avoid a large laser beam fired at him.
"Sorry about that," the copy of Siegfried called, his pistol still locked on Phillip's location. "Though, I can't let you go help the Herrscher."
"Oh, come on, Dad!" Kiana cried, trying to stop Siegfried from shooting at Phillip again and convince him of the situation. "You heard Aunt Teri: Mei's in trouble! We gotta go help!"
"What, is Mei your boyfriend?" Siegfried asked teasingly before turning his eyes back to Phillip. "No, wait, I bet he's your boyfriend. That makes more sense; Mei's a girl's name anyway." For a second, there was silence as the copy completely ignored Phillip's murderous gaze towards him before Siegfried looked back to Kiana as if an epiphany occurred. "Is my little girl bi?"
"That has nothing to do with-"
The words barely escaped Kiana's mouth when a strong wind passed her. It was Phillip, set on defeating the simulation's boss quickly so they could move on from there. He tossed a punch with all of his strength to do so, but Siegfried blocked it with ease.
'The hell?'
"You didn't really think Siegfried was weak enough to be easily beaten by you, right?"
'...Kind of, yeah.'
"Hey, hey, that's no way of greeting the in-laws," the copy said with his standard infuriating smile. "Though, this is a good time to see if you're worthy of my daughter's hand." With that, Siegfried reared back his free hand and launched a punch at Phillip's stomach much faster than Phillip was anticipating.
The hit hurt Phillip badly, knocking the wind out of him and causing his eyes to go white. As he stumbled back, Phillip covered his stomach to prevent any more damage and glared at the smiling Siegfried.
"Though, I will admit this one might have been improved due to Kiana's perceptions of her dad."
'Oh, ya think?!' Phillip pulled himself back to a standing position, taking deep breaths as the pain subsided quickly. Siegfried brought his fists up to his face, ready to continue the fight, but faltered when Kiana stepped between the two.
"Didn't you teach me that Kaslanas do whatever it takes to save those they love?!" Kiana asked with tears in her eyes. "Why's this any different?!"
Siegfried lowered his fists at this to look at the two with a serious gaze. "That's true: Kaslanas should fight to protect those they love. But I also taught you the Kaslana oath. Our family's oath is to protect this world from the Honkai menace. That includes Herrschers, like your friend."
Siegfried pulled out the pistols of Shamash and fired another beam right over the shoulder of Kiana. As Theresa called down from the observation room, screaming at Siegfried for firing a deadly weapon at his supposed "baby girl", Phillip turned Kiana to face him.
"Kiana, what's wrong?" he asked, knowing the girl would have made more extravagant actions to evade the beam but simply allowed the laser to sail over her shoulder instead. He didn't receive a response, a paralyzed Kiana staring back at him with blank eyes instead. After several light smacks against the cheek to see if she would respond to no avail, Phillip turned back to Siegfried with an even worse glare than before.
"... I mean, that's a good look for my girl's boyfriend," Siegfried stated as he raised his arms in surrender. "Don't you think it's a bit excessive, though?"
Phillip stormed up to Siegfried, skin going crimson as he forced past the 3rd gate and immediately entered the 4th. By the time he stopped in front of Siegfried, Phillip had several veins pulsing against his skin as an expression of nothing short of absolute malice etched on his face.
"...Anger overload much-"
Siegfried's jaw came rushing back into his top teeth. Phillip landed an uppercut strong enough to send the man into the roof. As he fell back down like a rag doll, Phillip met him midway and mule-kicked him into the back, then followed him to land a vicious round-house kick that caused Siegfried to skid across the circular wall. Phillip landed on the floor on his feet and watched Siegfreid circle the room for a good minute.
When he came to a stop, Siegfried dropped like a rock off the wall, landing with several chunks of debris following him. After a brief pause, he got up, throwing off the debris that fell on him, and patted the dust off as he looked no worse for wear from the attack.
"Alright, you got the strength down and the will to protect," Siegfried said with a half-smile but turned to a frown once Phillip was closer. "But you'll have to save her from herself at some point. Kaslanas must kill Herrschers to uphold our oath."
"Just shut up and fight," Phillip demanded, storming over to the man once more. Siegfried sighed deeply before pressing the back of the two pistols together. A few clicks were heard as the pistols connected and spewed out a massive flame between them, pausing Phillip from advancing. When the fire dispersed, a new weapon was in Siegfried's hands.
The grips of the pistols merged into a single pole instead, while the barrels became a rain guard for a massive great sword. Said sword had a black inner part connected with the glowing, orange outer blade with a hollowed-out section in the middle between the tip of the inner part and the tip of the outer edge. Siegfried swung it, generating blistering flames, before he pointed it at Phillip.
"Those that defend Herrschers are equal in their crimes," Siegfried said, raising his blade to prepare to strike. As he did, an orange-red sigil appeared from midair, glowing like a burning flame. "I'm sorry, but your foolishness must die here!"
Before he could swing the blade down, a shot rang out and shattered the sigil behind Siegfried. Both men looked off to the side and found Kiana holding out a pistol toward the copy of her father, and she didn't look happy.
"Stop acting like my dad, you faker! My real dad wouldn't get in my way to help my loved ones."
Siegfried lowered the blade, which disappeared into golden glitter, and pressed his hands against his hips as he sighed. Phillip looked toward the older man and found him giving a wide smile instead of the expected frown.
"So, you've finally made up your mind, baby doll," Siegfried stated, walking over to his daughter and giving her an even wider grin. "You've learned a lot in those four years, huh?"
"Look, not to say this isn't wholesome or anything," Phillip said impatiently, earning both Kaslanas' attention. "But Mei's still in trouble, so I'm gonna get going now and hurry over to her." He then put his full attention to Kiana as he continued. "Whenever you're done here, meet me by Himeko's apartment." Phillip turned to burn rubber and get to Mei but paused when Siegfried called back to him.
"When Kiana's old enough, you better get me a grandkid or two!"
"DAD!"
6:50 pm, the apartment complex mere seconds before detonation,
"You-you bi-"
"Ah, ah," "Mei" chided, pressing her bare foot down on the shoulder of the intruder, earning a sickening crack for her effort. Purple lightning danced over her body as she did so while Rita stood off to the side in amazement at the battle before her.
"Impressive," Rita exclaimed as she decided to close the distance between the two. "Seeing as the powers this man possesses seem similar to that of the records about the ninth Herrscher, you truly are powerful."
"Quiet, knave," the Herrscher hissed before looking down at the man beneath her. "Though, I find it interesting the first Herrscher manages to use the powers of the ninth. It doesn't matter, however, considering how pathetic you are."
"How are you so much more powerful than I?! We're both Herrschers!"
"Mei" didn't answer as she raised her hand, an orb of purple lightning resting in her palm. "I'm done with this. Fry for me, worm." Before she could do anything, however, a terrible pain coursed through her, originating from her heart.
"Second-level security," Rita muttered before raising her scythe to the main. It was too late, however, as the 1st Herrscher used his powers to send Rita to the other side of the campus with a finger flick. With the extra gone, the man stood to his full height, an unhinged smile on his face.
"You know, I was supposed to spare Ryoma's little girl, but I've been convinced to tear out of your cold body." The 1st Herrscher walked over to "Mei", bent over in pain, and grabbed her by the hair to force her to look up at him. "Any last words you have to Papa before your end?"
"There's nothing she needs to say." The 1st Herrscher tried to turn around to see who spoke from behind him but stopped when his back touched a prick against his mid-back. "Instead, I suggest you release her and retreat like Anti-Entropy is well known for."
"You valks are like roaches, I swear," the man grumbled before he turned around regardless, finding Durandal don in a white tank top and black shorts. "Oh, is it normal for a Valkyrie to attempt seduction? If you're looking for a warm bed, Papa can provide." All he got in response was Durandal's spear pointed at his throat.
"Shut it. If you have no plans to retreat, you'll be detained in a Schicksal cell for interrogation." Durandal looked over to her left and lowered her weapon with a sigh. "However, I doubt I'll be able to detain you now."
The man's smirk widened at this. "So, you realize-"
The rest of the man's words were forced down when Phillip slammed his foot against the man's face so hard it sent him flying in the same direction as Rita. Phillip didn't stay in place with this, rushing over to Mei as soon as he landed.
"Mei, are you alright?!"
"She's fine," "Mei" stated calmly, brushing her hair off to her side. "Right now, she's still sleeping, so I'm in control. I must keep my powers low to stave off the bomb, however."
"Drop control for now and rest, then," Phillip stated, sighing in relief. "I'll deal with the invader."
"He has the powers of the 1st Herrscher," "Mei" warned. "He's shown only gravity control currently, but there should be more capabilities under his authority."
Phillip nodded, taking the warning with a grain of salt, and ran to where the man landed. However, it was a short trip, as the man wasn't thrown too far from the group. The 1st Herrscher, eyes twitching and black lightning dancing along his body, patted his clothes aggressively as Phillip stopped in the middle of the campus.
"You little punk," the man growled, prompting Phillip to throw up a particular finger in response. "I guess you're the brat Cocolia wanted samples from, but I doubt she'll mind if I reduce you to paste first."
Phillip acted first, moving to the man's side in the blink of an eye to punch the man across the face, only to encounter the same barrier that Hua faced during her fight. His eyes widened as the man rounded to him, a smirk replacing the previous scowl.
"You snuck up on me twice, little rat. Don't think I'll let you try it a third time."
Phillip jumped over the 1st Herrscher, evading the finger-flick action the man always did. This left a rift in the concrete beneath them, leading to the entrance. Once Phillip landed, he was forced to dodge more gravity attacks, acting more likely an especially acrobatic monkey than a fighter.
'A bit of help would be appreciated here?'
"It's nothing special: just an imaginary barrier you must bypass. If you headed for the armory instead of jumping directly into helping Mei, this wouldn't have been a problem."
Phillip cursed, dodging another gravity well attack. He could head off and change into his battlesuit, especially with Durandal standing guard over Mei, but a small, proud voice within told him not to lose face in front of Mei.
This voice also sounded suspiciously like Kiana for whatever reason.
'Fine. I'll leave a clone to deal with this momentarily, and I'll grab my battlesuit.' Phillip created a cloud of smoke to hide himself and left a clone behind to distract the man. Once he was certain the clone was effective, Phillip leaped from the dissipating smoke towards the armory.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?!"
Not two feet from his launch point, Phillip felt the gravity around him increase exponentially and was sent down to the ground like a boulder from a mountain. He hit the ground like a falling car and could only have the capability to open his eyes to watch his clone get dispatched instantly. The 1st Herrscher turned to him with a snarl.
"Did you think you could confuse me with a duplicate?! Cocolia told me all about what you could do, so I knew every action you would do before you even did it! So, just stay here and break under 125 times normal gravity!"
"Hey, hombre!"
The 1st Herrscher growled deeply upon hearing the coming interruption and turned to face it. In return, he received a booted kick across his cheek, sending the man skidding across the platform. The pressure on Phillip let up, allowing him to climb to his feet to look at his rescuer, which happened to be none other than Kiana, who looked at him with a slightly disappointed look.
"How the hell did you get roughed up by this weakling?"
"Lacking the correct equipment," Phillip mumbled in response, rolling his head and shoulders to stretch out his joints. "Where's Theresa? I thought she would be with you when you got here."
"She needed to go look at something in the basement of the Cathedral. That Otto guy asked her to." Kiana looked back at her opponent, who was shaking as he struggled to his feet. After a second, Kiana rounded back to Phillip with a glint in her eye. "Say, because I saved you a second ago, shouldn't I get something as a prize?"
Phillip rolled his eyes at this, suspecting this would be the case. "We'll talk about it afterward. If you can do me a favor and stall this guy for a second, I'll get my suit and get back here as fast as I can."
"Neither of you are going anywhere!" Both Phillip and Kiana looked over to 1st Herrscher, who had scrambled back onto his feet, and an expression of unadulterated rage written on his face. "You dare think of me as a brush-off?! Me, the lord of gravity, who bends and twists the laws of physics and scoffs at physical constants?! Do you even know who I am?!"
Phillip and Kiana responded in tandem. "A moron with a high ego."
This didn't help the man's temper, a vein forming on his forehead as he began floating into the sky. "I'm the 1st Herrscher, you worthless cretins! In comparison to you worthless pions, I'm a damn GOD!"
"A GOD, YOU SAY?!"
Kiana jumped hard when the voice exploded from beside her but couldn't turn to look at it as a harsh wind blew past her. The 1st Herrscher stopped his rant, shocked to find Gabriel, possessing Phillip's body, standing before him, silver eyes glowing down at him.
"Well, let's put that to the test, shall we?" Gabriel curled his fingers into a fist, smiling warmly at the Herrscher in front of him, though his eyes gave anything but. "Though, you are rather limited. Considering you boast unparalleled control of gravity, why don't you hit me with your hardest?"
The 1st Herrscher didn't react immediately, finding the change of voice and sudden movement jarring, but his earlier rage quickly returned to him once the challenge reached his brain. "You want my best?! Fine then, suffer under 1000g!"
The 1st Herrscher thrust his hands forward, focused solely on the boy before him. In an instant, the reality warped, and a small black hole appeared right on top of Gabriel, sucking in a small portion of the surrounding area.
The Herrscher smirked at this, watching the black hole do its thing. "Well, that was an underwhelming-"
"Pathetic."
The 1st Herrscher froze, his smirk wiped off his face, as fingers broke through the event horizon of the black hole and tore through it, dispersing it as a mass of black mist. Gabriel, looking only like a light breeze displaced his hair, stuffed one hand into Phillip's coat pocket and left the other hanging at his side.
"If that's your highest capacity in terms of gravity, you shouldn't call yourself lord, much less a quote-unquote 'God'. The only thing you have left would be your imaginary barriers, so let's test that next." Gabriel lifted his hanging arm and pointed his index finger at the man. "Please attempt to block this, at the very least."
"Wha-" The man didn't get very far in his response before disappearing completely, leaving nothing behind as if he never existed, to begin with. Gabriel looked at where the man used to be with a look of disappointment before returning to the ground below and returning Phillip's body to its owner.
Kiana ran over to catch Phillip from toppling over, disoriented by the transition. "What the hell was that?!"
"That," Phillip said groggily, rubbing a hand over his eyes to remove his discombobulation, "is why you don't have a god complex in front of Gabriel."
"That's... concerning," Kiana muttered before she hoisted Phillip to his feet, allowing him to lean against her as she wrapped an arm around his waist. "Come on, let's get Mei and have the night for ourselves." Phillip let out a sigh and subjected himself to his fate.
"Please do."
Meanwhile, not too far away from the battle site,
"Well, this went better than expected."
Joachim stared at the courtyard behind a nearby tree, watching the two combatants stumble out of the battlefield. He came here in case the two failed at taking out the intruder but witnessed the deletion of said intruder instead. It was similar to his own plan in dealing with Cocolia's pet clone, but Joachim was happy it was settled rather quickly. He turned to leave but found his path blocked by another person.
"It's good to see you well, my Sovereign," said the young-looking woman before him. Her blue, messy hair managed to keep everything but a single bang from her forehead while fair-skinned fingers tapped on a blue holographic screen before her. Her dark-gray coat fluttered in the light breeze, revealing a light-blue vest with a blue-ish gray necktie beneath it and a white-collar shirt beneath that. She wore form-fitting shorts before thigh-high garters on both legs, hoisting her black socks. To complete her outfit, she wore two black shoes.
Joachim blinked at this, surprised by the woman's appearance. "Are you certain this is a good time to meet, Einstein?"
"Perfectly," Einstein insisted, swiping her screen closed as her blue eyes glinted in interest. "Theresa accepted my offer, so we're unofficial allies now, though having to pretend to side with Cocolia was nauseating. Was Cocolia's clone dealt with?"
"Not by my hand, but yes." Einstein's raised brow gave Joachim enough to chuckle. "Phillip is rather powerful, or rather the entity of 'Gabriel' is. Though, I will admit: Cocolia is getting better with those clones. This one even had his powers."
"They aren't him, however," Einstein stated bitterly. "Not will they ever be."
Joachim nodded at this, his eyes settling on the moon above them. "Though, with this invasion came a revelation. I see now why Cocolia is so interested in Phillip. We'll need to keep him out of her reach along with Raiden, Mei."
"Don't worry. Tesla and I will keep her in check." Einstein's body started to dissolve into purple code, starting from her feet and quickly traveling up. "Just make sure to take care of your health."
Joachim nodded as Einstein disappeared from his path but didn't move immediately. Instead, he held a hand out towards the rising moon, a look of determination on his face.
"We will complete the Selene in time, for his sake."
Inside Phillip's mind-scape,
"Quite disappointing, if I say so myself."
Gabriel grumbled into his tea, feeling immensely displeased with his recent encounter. So involved in his feelings, he didn't seem to notice his new guest in the mindscape.
"Why?"
"I mean, seriously: you shouldn't call yourself anything equivocal to that word if you can't own up to the position." Gabriel quickly downed the drink and poured himself another cup, a crimson liquid flowing into the white china cup. "When will these false 'gods' learn?"
"Why?" croaked the guest, finally catching the angel's attention.
Gabriel craned his neck in contemplation at the question. "Why else? You'll be very important in the coming events, so I plan to bring you back at a specific junction, should it come to pass."
"...Why?"
"You seem to enjoy that world, Mr. World," Gabriel said jokingly, something his guest didn't seem to take upon. Gabriel stood up from his seat and waved his hand, causing the table set to disappear in midair and his guest to fall to the ground with an ungraceful thud. As the blue-haired man scrambled to his feet, Gabriel waved him to follow the angel deeper into the mindscape.
"Come on, now, Welt Joyce. A friend's mother is here, and she's been a bit lonely with just me in here."
Welcome back to the story!
This shouldn't be too different from the original source. If you've read the manga, I'm sorry this wasn't a particularly exciting chapter. To those that haven't, I can't much help you there.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the chapter and I'll see you next time.